Anime (US: /ˈænəmeɪ/, UK: /ˈænɪmeɪ/;[1]Japanese: アニメ [aɲime](listen), plural: anime),[a] sometimes called Japanimation,[2][3][4] is hand-drawn and computer animation originating from Japan. The term anime is derived from the English word animation, and in Japan is used to refer to all forms of animated media.[5] Outside Japan, the term refers specifically to animation from Japan or to a Japanese-disseminated animation style often characterized by colorful graphics, vibrant characters and fantastical themes.[6][7] This culturally abstract approach to the word's meaning may open the possibility of anime produced in countries other than Japan.[8][9][10]

The earliest commercial Japanese animation dates to 1917. A characteristic art style emerged in the 1960s with the works of Osamu Tezuka and spread in the second half of the 20th century, developing a large domestic and international audience. Anime can be distributed theatrically, by way of television broadcasts, directly to home media, and over the Internet. In addition to completely original works, anime are often adaptations of Japanese comics (known as manga), light novels, or video games.

Production methods and techniques related to anime have adapted over time in response to emergent technologies. As a multimedia art form, it combines graphic art, characterization, cinematography, and other creative techniques.[11] Anime production typically focuses less on the animation of movement and more on the realism of settings as well as the use of camera effects, including panning, zooming, and angle shots.[11] Diverse art styles are used, and character proportions and features can be quite varied, including characteristically large or realistically sized emotive eyes. Anime is classified into numerous genres targeting both broad and niche audiences.

Etymology

Anime is an art form, specifically animation, that includes all genres found in cinema, but it can be mistakenly classified as a genre.[13] In Japanese, the term anime is used as a blanket term to refer to all forms of animation from around the world.[5][14] In English, anime (/ˈænəˌmeɪ/) is more restrictively used to denote a "Japanese-style animated film or television entertainment" or as "a style of animation created in Japan".[6][15]

The etymology of the word anime is disputed. The English term "animation" is written in Japanese katakana as アニメーション (animēshon, Japanese pronunciation: [animeːɕoɴ])[7] and is アニメ (anime) in its shortened form.[7] The pronunciation of anime in Japanese differs from pronunciations in other languages such as Standard English (pronunciation: /ˈænɪmeɪ/), which has different vowels and stress with regards to Japanese, where each mora carries equal stress. As with a few other Japanese words such as saké, Pokémon, and Kobo Abé, English-language texts sometimes spell anime as animé (as in French), with an acute accent over the final e, to cue the reader to pronounce the letter, not to leave it silent as Standard English orthography may suggest.

Some sources claim that anime derives from the French term for animation dessin animé,[16][17] but others believe this to be a myth derived from the French popularity of the medium in the late 1970s and 1980s.[7] In English, anime—when used as a common noun—normally functions as a mass noun. (For example: "Do you watch anime?" or "How much anime have you collected?")[18] Prior to the widespread use of anime, the term Japanimation was prevalent throughout the 1970s and 1980s. In the mid-1980s, the term anime began to supplant Japanimation.[16][19] In general, the latter term now only appears in period works where it is used to distinguish and identify Japanese animation.[20]

The word anime has also been criticized, e.g. in 1987, when Hayao Miyazaki stated that he despised the truncated word anime because to him it represented the desolation of the Japanese animation industry. He equated the desolation with animators lacking motivation and with mass-produced, overly expressionistic products relying upon a fixed iconography of facial expressions and protracted and exaggerated action scenes but lacking depth and sophistication in that they do not attempt to convey emotion or thought.[21]

Format

The first format of anime was theatrical viewing which originally began with commercial productions in 1917.[22] Originally the animated flips were crude and required played musical components before adding sound and vocal components to the production. On July 14, 1958, Nippon Television aired Mogura no Abanchūru ("Mole's Adventure"), both the first televised and first color anime to debut.[23] It was not until the 1960s when the first televised series were broadcast and it has remained a popular medium since.[24] Works released in a direct to video format are called "original video animation" (OVA) or "original animation video" (OAV); and are typically not released theatrically or televised prior to home media release.[25][26] The emergence of the Internet has led some animators to distribute works online in a format called "original net anime" (ONA).[27]

The home distribution of anime releases were popularized in the 1980s with the VHS and LaserDisc formats.[25] The VHS NTSC video format used in both Japan and the United States is credited as aiding the rising popularity of anime in the 1990s.[25] The LaserDisc and VHS formats were transcended by the DVD format which offered the unique advantages; including multiple subtitling and dubbing tracks on the same disc.[28] The DVD format also has its drawbacks in its usage of region coding; adopted by the industry to solve licensing, piracy and export problems and restricted region indicated on the DVD player.[28] The Video CD (VCD) format was popular in Hong Kong and Taiwan, but became only a minor format in the United States that was closely associated with bootleg copies.[28]

History

A cel from Namakura Gatana, the earliest surviving Japanese animated short made for cinemas, produced in 1917

Japanese animation began in the early 20th century, when Japanese filmmakers experimented with the animation techniques also pioneered in France, Germany, the United States and Russia.[17] A claim for the earliest Japanese animation is Katsudō Shashin, an undated and private work by an unknown creator.[29] In 1917, the first professional and publicly displayed works began to appear. Animators such as Ōten Shimokawa and Seitarou Kitayama produced numerous works, with the oldest surviving film being Kouchi's Namakura Gatana, a two-minute clip of a samurai trying to test a new sword on his target only to suffer defeat.[22][30][31] The 1923 Great Kantō earthquake resulted in widespread destruction to Japan's infrastructure and the destruction of Shimokawa's warehouse, destroying most of these early works.[32]

The success of The Walt Disney Company's 1937 feature film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs profoundly influenced many Japanese animators.[39] The 1950s saw a proliferation of short, animated advertisements made in Japan for television broadcasting.[40] In the 1960s, manga artist and animator Osamu Tezuka adapted and simplified many Disney animation techniques to reduce costs and to limit the number of frames in productions.[41] He intended this as a temporary measure to allow him to produce material on a tight schedule with inexperienced animation staff.[42]Three Tales, aired in 1960, was the first anime shown on television.[43] The first anime television series was Otogi Manga Calendar, aired from 1961 to 1964.[44]

Attributes

Anime artists employ many distinct visual styles

Anime differs greatly from other forms of animation by its diverse art styles, methods of animation, its production, and its process. Visually, anime is a diverse art form that contains a wide variety of art styles, differing from one creator, artist, and studio.[50] While no one art style predominates anime as a whole, they do share some similar attributes in terms of animation technique and character design.

Animation technique

Anime follows the typical production of animation, including storyboarding, voice acting, character design, and cel production (Shirobako, itself a series, highlights many of the aspects involved in anime production). Since the 1990s, animators have increasingly used computer animation to improve the efficiency of the production process. Artists like Noburō Ōfuji pioneered the earliest anime works, which were experimental and consisted of images drawn on blackboards, stop motion animation of paper cutouts, and silhouette animation.[51][52] Cel animation grew in popularity until it came to dominate the medium. In the 21st century, the use of other animation techniques is mostly limited to independent short films,[53] including the stop motion puppet animation work produced by Tadahito Mochinaga, Kihachirō Kawamoto and Tomoyasu Murata.[54][55] Computers were integrated into the animation process in the 1990s, with works such as Ghost in the Shell and Princess Mononoke mixing cel animation with computer-generated images.[56]Fuji Film, a major cel production company, announced it would stop cel production, producing an industry panic to procure cel imports and hastening the switch to digital processes.[56]

Japanese animation studios were pioneers of many limited animation techniques, and have given anime a distinct set of conventions. Unlike Disney animation, where the emphasis is on the movement, anime emphasizes the art quality and let limited animation techniques make up for the lack of time spent on movement. Such techniques are often used not only to meet deadlines but also as artistic devices.[58] Anime scenes place emphasis on achieving three-dimensional views, and backgrounds are instrumental in creating the atmosphere of the work.[17] The backgrounds are not always invented and are occasionally based on real locations, as exemplified in Howl's Moving Castle and The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya.[59][60] Oppliger stated that anime is one of the rare mediums where putting together an all-star cast usually comes out looking "tremendously impressive".[61]

The cinematic effects of anime differentiates itself from the stage plays found in American animation. Anime is cinematically shot as if by camera, including panning, zooming, distance and angle shots to more complex dynamic shots that would be difficult to produce in reality.[62][63][64] In anime, the animation is produced before the voice acting, contrary to American animation which does the voice acting first; this can cause lip sync errors in the Japanese version.[65]

Characters

Body proportions of human anime characters tend to accurately reflect the proportions of the human body in reality. The height of the head is considered by the artist as the base unit of proportion. Head heights can vary, but most anime characters are about seven to eight heads tall.[66] Anime artists occasionally make deliberate modifications to body proportions to produce super deformed characters that feature a disproportionately small body compared to the head; many super deformed characters are two to four heads tall. Some anime works like Crayon Shin-chan completely disregard these proportions, in such a way that they resemble caricatured Western cartoons.

A common anime character design convention is exaggerated eye size. The animation of characters with large eyes in anime can be traced back to Osamu Tezuka, who was deeply influenced by such early animation characters as Betty Boop, who was drawn with disproportionately large eyes.[67] Tezuka is a central figure in anime and manga history, whose iconic art style and character designs allowed for the entire range of human emotions to be depicted solely through the eyes.[68] The artist adds variable color shading to the eyes and particularly to the cornea to give them greater depth. Generally, a mixture of a light shade, the tone color, and a dark shade is used.[69][70] Cultural anthropologist Matt Thorn argues that Japanese animators and audiences do not perceive such stylized eyes as inherently more or less foreign.[71] However, not all anime characters have large eyes. For example, the works of Hayao Miyazaki are known for having realistically proportioned eyes, as well as realistic hair colors on their characters.[72]

Anime and manga artists often draw from a defined set of facial expressions to depict particular emotions

Hair in anime is often unnaturally lively and colorful or uniquely styled. The movement of hair in anime is exaggerated and "hair action" is used to emphasize the action and emotions of characters for added visual effect.[73] Poitras traces hairstyle color to cover illustrations on manga, where eye-catching artwork and colorful tones are attractive for children's manga.[73] Despite being produced for a domestic market, anime features characters whose race or nationality is not always defined, and this is often a deliberate decision, such as in the Pokémon animated series.[74]

Anime and manga artists often draw from a common canon of iconic facial expression illustrations to denote particular moods and thoughts.[75] These techniques are often different in form than their counterparts in Western animation, and they include a fixed iconography that is used as shorthand for certain emotions and moods.[76] For example, a male character may develop a nosebleed when aroused.[76] A variety of visual symbols are employed, including sweat drops to depict nervousness, visible blushing for embarrassment, or glowing eyes for an intense glare.[77]

Music

The opening and credits sequences of most anime television episodes are accompanied by Japanese pop or rock songs, often by reputed bands. They may be written with the series in mind, but are also aimed at the general music market, and therefore often allude only vaguely or not at all to the themes or plot of the series. Pop and rock songs are also sometimes used as incidental music ("insert songs") in an episode, often to highlight particularly important scenes.[78]

Genres

Anime are often classified by target demographic, including childrens' (子供, kodomo), girls' (少女, shōjo), boys' (少年, shōnen) and a diverse range of genres targeting an adult audience. Shoujo and shounen anime sometimes contain elements popular with children of both sexes in an attempt to gain crossover appeal. Adult anime may feature a slower pace or greater plot complexity that younger audiences may typically find unappealing, as well as adult themes and situations.[79] A subset of adult anime works featuring pornographic elements are labeled "R18" in Japan, and are internationally known as hentai (originating from pervert (変態, hentai)). By contrast, some anime subgenres incorporate ecchi, sexual themes or undertones without depictions of sexual intercourse, as typified in the comedic or harem genres; due to its popularity among adolescent and adult anime enthusiasts, the inclusion of such elements is considered a form of fan service.[80][81] Some genres explore homosexual romances, such as yaoi (male homosexuality) and yuri (female homosexuality). While often used in a pornographic context, the terms yaoi and yuri can also be used broadly in a wider context to describe or focus on the themes or the development of the relationships themselves.[82]

Anime has to be licensed by companies in other countries in order to be legally released. While anime has been licensed by its Japanese owners for use outside Japan since at least the 1960s, the practice became well-established in the United States in the late 1970s to early 1980s, when such TV series as Gatchaman and Captain Harlock were licensed from their Japanese parent companies for distribution in the US market. The trend towards American distribution of anime continued into the 1980s with the licensing of titles such as Voltron and the 'creation' of new series such as Robotech through use of source material from several original series.[95]

In the early 1990s, several companies began to experiment with the licensing of less children-oriented material. Some, such as A.D. Vision, and Central Park Media and its imprints, achieved fairly substantial commercial success and went on to become major players in the now very lucrative American anime market. Others, such as AnimEigo, achieved limited success. Many companies created directly by Japanese parent companies did not do as well, most releasing only one or two titles before completing their American operations.

Licenses are expensive, often hundreds of thousands of dollars for one series and tens of thousands for one movie.[96] The prices vary widely; for example, Jinki: Extend cost only $91,000 to license while Kurau Phantom Memory cost $960,000.[96] Simulcast Internet streaming rights can be cheaper, with prices around $1,000-$2,000 an episode,[97] but can also be more expensive, with some series costing more than US$200,000 per episode.[98]

The anime market for the United States was worth approximately $2.74 billion in 2009.[99] Dubbed animation began airing in the United States in 2000 on networks like The WB and Cartoon Network's Adult Swim.[100] In 2005, this resulted in five of the top ten anime titles having previously aired on Cartoon Network.[100] As a part of localization, some editing of cultural references may occur to better follow the references of the non-Japanese culture.[101] The cost of English localization averages US$10,000 per episode.[102]

The industry has been subject to both praise and condemnation for fansubs, the addition of unlicensed and unauthorized subtitled translations of anime series or films.[103] Fansubs, which were originally distributed on VHS bootlegged cassettes in the 1980s, have been freely available and disseminated online since the 1990s.[103] Since this practice raises concerns for copyright and piracy issues, fansubbers tend to adhere to an unwritten moral code to destroy or no longer distribute an anime once an official translated or subtitled version becomes licensed. They also try to encourage viewers to buy an official copy of the release once it comes out in English, although fansubs typically continue to circulate through file-sharing networks.[104] Even so, the laid back regulations of the Japanese animation industry tend to overlook these issues, allowing it to grow underground and thus increasing the popularity until there is a demand for official high-quality releases for animation companies. This has led to an increase in global popularity with Japanese animations, reaching $40 million in sales in 2004.[105]

Legal international availability of anime on the Internet has changed in recent years, with simulcasts of series available on websites like Crunchyroll.

Markets

Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO) valued the domestic anime market in Japan at ¥2.4 trillion ($24 billion), including ¥2 trillion from licensed products, in 2005.[106] JETRO reported sales of overseas anime exports in 2004 to be ¥2 trillion ($18 billion).[107] JETRO valued the anime market in the United States at ¥520 billion ($5.2 billion),[106] including $500 million in home video sales and over $4 billion from licensed products, in 2005.[108] JETRO projected in 2005 that the worldwide anime market, including sales of licensed products, would grow to ¥10 trillion ($100 billion).[106][108] The anime market in China was valued at $21 billion in 2017,[109] and is projected to reach $31 billion by 2020.[110]

Globalization

Anime has become commercially profitable in Western countries, as demonstrated by early commercially successful Western adaptations of anime, such as Astro Boy and Speed Racer. Early American adaptions in the 1960s made Japan expand into the continental European market, first with productions aimed at European and Japanese children, such as Heidi, Vicky the Viking and Barbapapa, which aired in various countries. Particularly Italy, Spain and France grew an interest into Japan's output, due to its cheap selling price and productive output. In fact, Italy imported the most anime outside of Japan.[112] These mass imports influenced anime popularity in South American, Arabic and German markets.[113]

The beginning of 1980 saw the introduction of Japanese anime series into the American culture. In the 1990s, Japanese animation slowly gained popularity in America. Media companies such as Viz and Mixx began publishing and releasing animation into the American market.[114] The 1988 film Akira is largely credited with popularizing anime in the Western world during the early 1990s, before anime was further popularized by television shows such as Pokémon and Dragon Ball Z in the late 1990s.[115][116] The growth of the Internet later provided Western audiences an easy way to access Japanese content.[105] This is especially the case with net services such as Netflix and Crunchyroll. As a direct result, various interests surrounding Japan have increased.

Fan response

Anime clubs gave rise to anime conventions in the 1990s with the "anime boom", a period marked by increased popularity of anime.[117] These conventions are dedicated to anime and manga and include elements like cosplay contests and industry talk panels.[118] Cosplay, a portmanteau for "costume play", is not unique to anime and has become popular in contests and masquerades at anime conventions.[119] Japanese culture and words have entered English usage through the popularity of the medium, including otaku, an unflattering Japanese term commonly used in English to denote a fan of anime and manga.[120] Another word that has arisen describing fans in the United States is wapanese meaning White individuals who desire to be Japanese, or later known as weeaboo for individuals who demonstrate a strong interest in Japanese anime subculture, which is a term that originated from abusive content posted on the popular bulletin board website 4chan.org.[121] Anime enthusiasts have produced fan fiction and fan art, including computer wallpapers and anime music videos.[122]

As of the 2010s, many anime fans use online communities and databases such as MyAnimeList to discuss anime and track their progress watching respective series.[123][124]

Anime style

One of the key points that made anime different from a handful of Western cartoons is the potential for visceral content. Once the expectation that the aspects of visual intrigue or animation being just for children is put aside, the audience can realize that themes involving violence, suffering, sexuality, pain, and death can all be storytelling elements utilized in anime as much as other types of media.[125] However, as anime itself became increasingly popular, its styling has been inevitably the subject of both satire and serious creative productions.[7]South Park's "Chinpokomon" and "Good Times with Weapons" episodes, Adult Swim's Perfect Hair Forever, and Nickelodeon's Kappa Mikey are Western examples of satirical depictions of Japanese culture and anime, but anime tropes have also been satirized by some anime, such as KonoSuba.

Traditionally only Japanese works have been considered anime, but some works have sparked debate for blurring the lines between anime and cartoons, such as the American anime style production Avatar: The Last Airbender.[9] These anime styled works have become defined as anime-influenced animation, in an attempt to classify all anime styled works of non-Japanese origin.[126] Some creators of these works cite anime as a source of inspiration, for example the French production team for Ōban Star-Racers that moved to Tokyo to collaborate with a Japanese production team.[127][128][129] When anime is defined as a "style" rather than as a national product it leaves open the possibility of anime being produced in other countries,[6][9] but this has been contentious amongst fans, with John Oppliger stating, "The insistence on referring to original American art as Japanese "anime" or "manga" robs the work of its cultural identity."[7][130]

A U.A.E.-Filipino produced TV series called Torkaizer is dubbed as the "Middle East's First Anime Show", and is currently in production[10] and looking for funding.[131] Netflix has produced multiple anime series in collaboration with Japanese animation studios,[132] and in doing so, has offered a more accessible channel for distribution to Western markets.[133]

The web-based series RWBY, produced by Texas-based company Rooster Teeth, is produced using an anime art style, and the series has been described as "anime" by multiple sources. For example, Adweek, in the headline to one of its articles, described the series as "American-made anime",[134] and in another headline, The Huffington Post described it as simply "anime", without referencing its country of origin.[135] In 2013, Monty Oum, the creator of RWBY, said "Some believe just like Scotch needs to be made in Scotland, an American company can't make anime. I think that's a narrow way of seeing it. Anime is an art form, and to say only one country can make this art is wrong."[8]RWBY has been released in Japan with a Japanese language dub;[136] the CEO of Rooster Teeth, Matt Hullum, commented "This is the first time any American-made anime has been marketed to Japan. It definitely usually works the other way around, and we're really pleased about that."[134]

Media franchises

In Japanese culture and entertainment, media mix is a strategy to disperse content across multiple representations: different broadcast media, gaming technologies, cell phones, toys, amusement parks, and other methods.[137] It is the Japanese term for a transmedia franchise.[138][139] The term gained its circulation in late 1980s, but the origins of the strategy can be traced back to the 1960s with the proliferation of anime, with its interconnection of media and commodity goods.[140]

^Leonard, Sean (September 1, 2005). "Progress against the law: Anime and fandom, with the key to the globalization of culture". International Journal of Cultural Studies. 8 (3): 281–305. doi:10.1177/1367877905055679.